Mr B. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman, Satyam Computers, relaxing after addressing the press conference in Hyderabad on the second quarter company results on Wednesday. He said that the company benefited from the higher offshore business, even as global IT services companies were affected by the challenging market scenario.

HYDERABAD, Oct. 23

SATYAM Computer Services Ltd has added 23 new customers during the quarter ended September 30, 2002, while inducting about 227 techies as associates in the company, thereby taking its overall strength to 8,953 as against 8,726.

The Chairman of Satyam, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju, said that with these additions, the client list grew both in terms of quality and potential. It now has 72 Fortune-500 customers, compared to only 50 in the corresponding previous year quarter.

Reiterating the company outlook for the year, he said that the revenue guidance for the whole year is on track despite tough business scenario.

Mr Raju told newspersons that the quarter also saw several global awards recognising the quality of the work the company executed for its customers. The Satyam offshore service delivery programme was cited as industry best practice by Aberdeen - a leader in providing market analysis and positioning services.

On the issue of pressure on billing, Mr Ram Myanampati, Senior Vice-President, said " it is true that there has been pressure on billing following slowdown on investments in the IT sector. However, we believe this has bottomed out. Despite this, when some of the recent contracts were signed by us, we have managed good billing rates."

Arm ties up with GeneEd

Our Bangalore Bureau reports: Satyam Education Services Ltd (SESL), an e-learning provider and a 100 per cent subsidiary of Satyam Infoway, has tied up with GeneEd Inc of the US.

GeneEd provides life sciences e-learning curricula and client proprietary scientific e-learning. The two companies will focus on e-learning solutions for the pharma and biotech industries in India. They will offer curricula for research and business professionals in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical instruments and healthcare industries

``Indian pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are addressing global opportunities for drug discovery, outsourced R&D and bioinformatics services as an area of focus. Reducing time to market for them is of strategic importance. E-learning can help achieve this," said a company press release.